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Part of the book series: The OR Essentials series ((ORESS))

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Abstract

This paper presents a personal view, drawing on some 30 years of working in this area, of past, present and future contributions of operational research (OR) in health in the UK. It considers developments in health and care and in OR contributions to these at local and national level since the creation of the National Health Service 60 years ago; likely future developments in health and care; and associated priorities for preparing now for OR to make a major impact on health and care in the next 40 years. The aim is to stimulate reflective thinking and promote anticipatory action among health OR practitioners of the future.

This paper is based on a keynote talk given by the author at the OR 50 Conference in York in September 2008.

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Royston, G. (2016). One Hundred Years of Operational Research in Health—UK 1948–2048. In: Mustafee, N. (eds) Operational Research for Emergency Planning in Healthcare: Volume 2. The OR Essentials series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-57328-5_14

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